Logs - Am I just a bump? Helping 151 students better understand logarithms

Every semester, logs seem to be the most difficult topic for our students. I have tried to tie in the ideas to real world, show students why and how we use logs, but still no success in them fully understanding the material. The students do numerous homework problems, workbook pages and examples in class. This semester I decided to try something different. The students had a workbook page they did for homework, I checked it after they had time to work. Two class periods later I gave them a worksheet to do in class in their groups. They were to try doing as much of it without using notes. It was the same worksheet they already had done, but numbers were changed. I wanted them to see if they were able to recognize the steps to take. I plan to try this again in the fall to fully compare the data. The results from fall 13 to spring 14 were very similar fall did not have the change so I would like to give it one more semester to see the success.